In the Last Few Hours … Sudden Danger Signs in Polling

As Election Day approaches, we must be very sensitive to last minute changes in the polls. Remember, George W. Bush fell from a 4-point lead into a tie over the last weekend in 2000, and Bill Clinton rose from a tie to a 5-point win in the last weekend of 1992.

With that caution in mind, a danger signal comes from the latest Rasmussen Poll reflecting a 2-point gain for President Obama. Whereas before the storm, Rasmussen showed Mitt Romney two ahead, he now has the race tied at 48-48. That is troublesome.

In Pennsylvania, Romney led on Wednesday night by two points but on Thursday night’s polling, he was tied. We have also seen slippage for Romney in Michigan.

More troubling, Rasmussen shows a 2-point gain for Obama, with job approval rising from 48 percent to 50 percent in the current poll.

All of these changes are, no doubt, related to hurricane Sandy.

Nobody really knows what the impact of hurricane Sandy will be on the election. Until its waves crashed into the New Jersey shore, the election was well in hand for the Romney campaign. Coming off strong debate performances in which he debunked Obama’s negative attacks, the former Massachusetts governor was doing very well. Obama was reeling, unable to regain his footing, in search of a message and bedeviled by questions about his increasingly obvious cover up of the Libyan attacks.

But after the storm? Who knows? We have never had a storm so near a national election, much less one as close as this is.

Many a governor or mayor has recovered from political oblivion by actively running around his state seeming to coordinate storm relief. And just as many have fallen apart because of a failure to clean up promptly.

It may be that Obama’s visit to New Jersey and the high profile — figurative — kisses bestowed on him, by nominal Republican Mayor Bloomberg of New York and real Republican Chris Christie of New Jersey, might have helped him. Perhaps he is erasing the image of a nit-picking, petulant president, dwelling in negative charges against his opponent, and replacing it with the image of an executive handling a tough situation for our country.

The purpose of early warnings is to galvanize activity. So please reach again into your wallets and pocketbooks and help to fund our super PAC for America. We are funneling major resources into Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the two of the three key breakthrough states for Romney. The other is, of course, Ohio.

This race is not over yet! And with a media determined to re-elect Obama, we may see the president’s recovery continue unless we step up our own efforts to thwart it.

We are still likely to win. The undecided vote always goes against the incumbent and all the polling suggests we will be more successful than them at turning out the vote. But, early warning signs must be headed.